Creative Game in Science

Mirka Koro-Ljungberg

Abstract

In this article, the metaphor of game provides insights into how successful Finnish

scientists defined and depicted their creative processes. Data were juxtaposed from

26 life-story interviews of recognized scientists to reflect the complexity and indi-

viduality of the creative endeavor. Various stages and characteristics of creative

processes are described in the form of

collective-data story, a collage-like dialogue

that creates multiple layers of meanings to illustrate the creativity game and its ele-

ments (various

roles,

backstage work, rules of domain, and individual engagement).

Introduction

Researching the creative process could help to understand how and

why some people are more successful in their creative practices than

others. I came to view creative encounters in science as a form of

game that is used to conduct successful scientific work. Thinking of

creativity as a game benefits scientists in their careers and problem-

solving processes by simultaneously keeping them focused and stim-

ulating their motivation. Based on scientists' interview responses, I

composed and created the elements of creative game. The parts of

Goffman's (1956) play theory, where he proposed how performers

have to follow certain rules and they have various roles to play while

acting in front or backstage, provided the framework and creative

environment to locate the elements of the creativity game.

The metaphor of creativity as game in science was created from

26 successful Finnish Academy professors (21 males and 5 females)

during the open-ended interviews. These widely recognized scien-

tists,

who are also called academy professors, are selected for their

5-year research appointments through international peer-review

processes. At the time of the interviews, the academy had a total of

29 professors (3 did not participate in my study). The Academy of

Finland supports and finances the research of these internationally

Mirka Koro-Ljungberg is Assistant Professor of Qualitative Methodology at

University of Florida, Gainesville.

Journal for the Education of the

Gifted.

Vol. 25, No. 1, 2001, pp.

32-51.

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Creative Game in Science

successful researchers from various discipline areas (e.g., physics,

medicine, chemistry, biology, sociology, and education). Academy

professors, who were between 35- and 65-years old during the inter-

views,

had an average of 191 publications each and held academic

senior professorships at Finnish or international universities.

Focused life-story interviews, which lasted two to four hours each,

took place during 1998 in the academy professors' workplaces or

their homes. Interview questions dealt with descriptions of a com-

mon working day, working habits, and various stages of professors'

creative problem-solving process (see interview questions in appen-

dix).

Interview data were supported with the participants' curriculum

vitae and the researcher's field notes. I transcribed and analyzed all

interviews. Later I conducted member checks by sending primary

findings and their interpretations to the participants for reading and

evaluation. Member checks did not change my primary postulates

related to creativity or the elements of the creativity game.

I did not introduce the concept of the game metaphor during the

interviews, but I discovered the usefulness of it during the data analy-

sis.

The idea of a metaphor of game itself (game here also refers to the

other closely related metaphors, such as "hunting," "shooting game,"

"chess,"

and "puzzle") describing scientific creativity and problem

solving was used spontaneously for an example in six of the inter-

views.

Other participants did not use the metaphor of game itself but

described the elements of the game (e.g., intuition, dreams, a search

for beauty) when they referred to their creative processes. Hausman

(1987) extolled the meaning of examining metaphors in the creativity

research: "I proposed that an appropriate way to study creativity is

through a study of metaphor. Metaphors not only may exemplify cre-

ations, but they are also integral to sustained attempts to interpret and

understand creative achievements" (p. 387). For example, Ville (all

names have been changed) described the complexity and the individ-

uality of the creative process and problem solving by using the game

metaphor as related to truth: "Creative problem solving is a game

where your purpose is to gain more knowledge. Your opponent in the

absolute situation is truth

itself.

Truth never lies. You just ask ques-

tions from it. You cannot fool truth."

Another participant, Jaakko, referred to the same metaphor in a

different context when describing both individual and cultural

processes of creativity simultaneously:

Science is like playing chess against an invisible opponent. If I

do this move, I have to follow carefully my opponent's move

and analyze that. I'm not the one who dictates the rules of the

game. Those come from somewhere else.

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34 Journal for the Education of the Gifted

In this article, I first introduce the game metaphor and the fram-

ing concepts of creativity. I use the application of Goffman's (1956)

play theory to integrate his theory with my interpretations to sup-

port the elements of the creative game. Then I move to the collec-

tive dialogue, which is created to present polysémie and multiple

perspectives of the creative process but not to search for one authen-

tic understanding of creativity. Last, I connect the elements of cre-

ative game and individual experiences to the larger discourse of

creativity research.

Metaphor of Game

The metaphor of the game served as a meaning-making tool for the

professors, as well as for me. Various aspects related to the game

metaphor in science helped the scientists to describe their experi-

ences;

they also guided my representation of scientists' epiphanies.

"Metaphor is not just an ornamental linguistic device, but [it] is a

common scheme by which ordinary people think and use language"

(Gibbs, 1999, p. 213). In the larger context, metaphorical language

can connect novel concepts to unknown concepts by using existing

knowledge to create new knowledge (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980;

Morgan, 1997; Radman, 1997). The process of metaphorical use of

language could be seen also as the base of the theory building and rea-

soning in science. Gibbs even claimed that "It seems very sensible to

suppose that the ability to think metaphorically is positively related

to creativity" (p. 215), and metaphorical thinking could even con-

tribute to the originality of the creative process (Mumford, Connelly,

Baughman, & Marks, 1994).

Metaphors are widely applied, that is, they are present almost

everywhere where creative thoughts are at stake. Speaking,

describing, explaining, and experimenting in metaphors is a

result of the successful cooperation between the metaphoric

instrumentalization of meaning and the mechanisms of the

mind. (Radman, 1997, p. 68)

On one hand, metaphors are powerful tools connecting knowledge,

time,

and space; but, on the other hand, they are criticized for their

value orientation by prioritizing one order of the facts over the other

(Richardson, 1990) and creating ways of not seeing (Morgan, 1997).

Even though Hausman (1987) encouraged creativity researchers to

incorporate the use of metaphors into their work, he doubted if cre-

ativity was a concept at all. Therefore, influenced by his thoughts

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Creative Game in Science

and a poststructural framework, the purpose of this study was not to

search for one, true understanding but to create possibilities of view-

ing creativity and the creative processes in science differently by orig-

inating a richer, though partial, situated, and changing understanding

of a creative process. This understanding is grounded in and presented

through individual experiences in the form of collective dialogue. My

hope is that readers will build their own understandings of the phe-

nomenon and learn from others' encounters.

Creativity Theories of Individual and Cultural Processes

The concept and definition of creativity have agitated researchers for

years.

Should the definition of creativity be based on the person (e.g.,

Amabile, 1989; Gardner, 1993; MacKinnon, 1988; Martindale, 1989),

on the product (Skinner, 1988), or on the creative process? For this

article, I defined creativity as a process and looked at seminal work

related to the process views of creativity. As

P. Torrance described

in an interview with Shaughnessy (1998):

I tried to describe creative thinking as the process of sensing

dif-

ficulties, problems, gaps in information, missing elements,

something askew; making guesses and formulating hypotheses

about these deficiencies, evaluating and testing these guesses

and hypotheses; possibly revising and retesting them,· and

finally communicating the results. I like this definition because

it describes such a natural process, (p. 442)

Torrance, among others, saw creativity as an individual process,

where insights and problem-solving strategies played a significant

role.

Also, Wallas (1988), in his stage model of creative process (prepa-

ration, incubation, illumination, verification), emphasized intraper-

sonal factors of creativity, while Csikszentmihalyi (1996) viewed

creativity more as an interpersonal process "where a symbolic

domain in the culture is changed. New songs, new ideas, new

machines are what creativity is about" (p. 8). This cultural process

changes the domain, and the person acts as an agent of change.

Creativity is born in the interaction between the individual, the

domain, and the field. Similarly, Rogers (1988) extended the creative

process to involve not only the person and the product, but also other

materials, events, people, or circumstances of one's life.

The view of creativity as an individual process highlights a person's

aims,

capabilities, and means toward productivity,· the cultural

process regulates the forces of the field and the domain directing the

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36 Journal for the Education of the Gifted

individual's productivity. The cultural process also pertains to the

role of gatekeepers, who maintain the personal and social power of

controlling the creativity field. The experiences of these professors,

as well as the work of Sawyer and Csikszentmihalyi (1994), indicated

that both levels of the creative process, individual and cultural, were

interwoven and connected. Creative, successful work or effective

novelty (Cropley, 1999) in science requires individual insights, per-

sonal input, as well as cultural tradition and transformed knowledge.

Root-Bernstein (1999) grounded the roots of successful creative dis-

coveries one third to the direct, primary problem-solving process,·

one third to the problem solving of similar problems; and one third

to the activities done during the leisure time, as on vacation, in the

shower, or during sleep. He also claimed that

The basic drives (for making discoveries) seemed to be control,

curiosity, necessity (need to discover, to find a cure, and so

forth),

serendipity (almost like a change, not really looking for

this solution but working on something else), or aesthetics

(beauty). Often several of these drives worked simultaneously.

(p.

567)

Previous studies also showed that creative people see things in

unusual ways and play with ideas, concepts, and elements

(Csikszentmihalyi, 1996; Roe, 1988; Rogers, 1988. Sternberg, 1988).

But why and how do they do it? An essence of the creative process

can be understood in the way scientists utilize contradictory

thoughts to understand disparate ideas simultaneously, as

Rothenberg (1988) indicated in his concept of "Janusian thinking."

One professor described his Janusian thinking as follows:

I am able to analyze contradictory thoughts simultaneously in

my head. I will put a fence between thoughts and in the other

side I use different strategy and in the other side another strat-

egy. I know that before the thought is ready I cannot take the

fence out. Finally when the solution is clear and whole, the

fence could be taken off and various parts can be connected.

This participant's strategy of using contradictory thoughts, how-

ever, connected the creative process to the problem-solving strate-

gies in a singular, one-faceted presentation of the whole process of

creativity instead of presenting various spaces, as Dunbar (1999)

guided creativity research toward characterizing scientific creativity

"as a search in various problem spaces" (p. 529). I decided to com-

bine many views on and insights into creativity through the use of

game metaphor to provide readers with wider, sometimes even con-

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Creative Game in Science

tradictory, excerpts. Creative game as used in this article mostly

highlights creative problem solving in science, but it dismisses many

other aspects of creative encounters.

Concepts of Goffman's Play Theory Applied to the Everyday Life of

Scientists

Goffman (1956) postulated that interactions among people could be

viewed as a play. Each performer has a role and may act in the front

region and in the backstage. He also explained how certain settings

demand specific performances, which are controlled by the set rules.

In this article, I use some concepts of Goffman's play theory to

construct the metaphor of creative game in science, as participants of

this study have defined it. Especially, I focus on and elaborate four

points: the various roles of professors; the backstage work; the rules

of discipline, which are controlled by gatekeepers,· and the rules of

individual engagement created by the scientists themselves. As the

players in Goffman's theory, academy professors had various roles to

play: a player against a visible opponent, a hunter of ideas, a lazy

thinker, an efficient cooperator, a writer, and a painter, among oth-

ers.

Scientists' multiple roles were directed by gatekeepers, the rules

of the domain (e.g., types of acceptable products, leadership require-

ments, working schedules), stages of the creative process, and the

nature of working environments (e.g., laboratory, hospital, school,

business world). For instance, scientists had different roles as inde-

pendent creators but were also members of the larger scientific com-

munities and, usually, the leaders of their labs.

As in the role of individual creator, many stages of the creative

process can happen backstage, where other people cannot witness

the process (intuition, incubation of the ideas,· see, for example,

Wallas, 1988). The process of incubation rarely happens around

other people,· it sometimes even requires a silent, lonely place where

the creators can isolate themselves from the others. On the other

hand, in the front stage, professors cooperate with national and

international colleagues, making their work public by sharing the

research process and its results. The image of the solitary scientist

working long hours in the laboratory must be combined with a view

of the cooperative and international presenter. Many of the inter-

viewed scientists confirmed Dunbar's (1999) notion of the signifi-

cance of group power and asserted the importance of contributing

reasoning to many individuals. Additionally, looking for truth and

real meanings was constituted as a central part of the backstage cre-

ative work (MacKinnon, 1988). According to the scientists in this

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38 fouinai for the Education of the Gifted

study, it seems as if they experienced an inborn desire to find solu-

tions,

to solve mysteries, which motivated them to reach their lim-

its and work overtime.

In the process of trying to understand these scientists' creativity, I

used Csikszentmihalyi's (1996) theory of talent development to

guide me in seeing how the game of creativity was closely connected

to the individual, to the domain, and to the field. Similarly, as noted

in Goffman's (1956) theory, play is directed by the set of rules; the

creative game in science cannot operate without the rules of disci-

pline or the elements of individual engagement. The gatekeepers of

the field created the rules of the discipline (see also Kuhn, 1996) by

controlling which products are considered creative and, thus, which

will become accepted as new parts of the domain. While discipline

rules were sometimes well established and known, silent rules,

which were more implicit or sometimes unspoken, also existed. In

many cases, unspoken rules were taught to new players by mentors

(Piirto, 1992; Raehalme, 1996; Sternberg, 1996) or by other members

of the scientific community when novices pushed the limits of what

was considered acceptable ways to practice science.

It could have been the understanding or following of the rules of

the discipline that made these research participants the key players

and leading developers of their fields. They held the most recent

knowledge, and it became their responsibility to put the knowledge

into practice as well as to distribute it wisely. Some of them found

the role demanding and hard to play due to the expectations, budget

limitations, and various conflicting roles or paradigms. For instance,

one participant recalled a situation where he wanted to add a part to

his study from another discipline's knowledge; his mentor, how-

ever, made it clear that discipline lines were not to be crossed in this

field. In spite of some creative and logistical obstacles in their acad-

emic careers, the enjoyment of the challenge kept most of the pro-

fessors focused and prolific.

Similarly, as creativity simultaneously appeared to be both an

individual and a cultural process, the discipline rules of the game

and individual elements of engagement overlapped and coexisted in

the life of the professors. Professors created strategies to nourish

their creative processes and identified significant environments

where they felt comfortable to create (Rogers, 1988). Each also found

and established some additional individual elements to help main-

tain the productive creative game. In the following collective data

story, I discuss in more detail how the application of Goffman's

(1956) play theory interacts and connects to the game metaphor and

to the professors' creative processes.

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Creative Game in Science 39

Methodological Moves Toward Collective Data Story

Early in the data analysis process, I searched for themes relating to

creative processes inside individual cases across all 26 professors. I

identified various themes describing creativity and creative work.

The participants explained themes through metaphors (e.g., game,

puzzle, creative gear, computer, shooting a target). For example, Reijo

used a puzzle metaphor to illustrate themes of dissatisfaction with

previous knowledge, intuition, and cooperation of creative work.

When comparing data across the cases (Yin, 1994), the game

metaphor became the most descriptive linguistic device to illustrate

the data. The game metaphor captured the meanings created through

other metaphors and pulled together individual creativity themes

and responses (e.g., metaphors of puzzle, creative gear, and shooting

the target can be viewed as forms of a game where preconditions of a

game, such as time, place, and various strategies, become meaning-

ful).

During the interpretation of the game metaphor, I realized how

it connected with some concepts of Goffman's (1956) play theory

(players have multiple roles to play, some events occur backstage,

various rules exist to control the play). Goffman's concepts provided

an environment and created circumstances that made the elements

of creative game possible.

While some of the professors in this study used metaphorical lan-

guage to shape their thoughts, explicate complex phenomena

(Weiner, 1991), and communicate better (Gibbs, 1999), others did not

use any metaphors to expound on their thinking. These quotes of cre-

ative processes were collected from 12 participants (male and female)

who used creativity metaphors or described the stages of their cre-

ative processes instead of emphasizing creative persons or products

during the interviews.

Purposes of the Collective Data Story

In the following data story, which I call a collective data story or col-

lective dialogue of scientific creators, I have juxtaposed data from the

interviews of those 12 participants who used metaphors or described

the elements of the creative game in order to reflect the complexity

of the creative process. In this story, scientists shared their experi-

ences in academia and interacted with each other, agreeing and dis-

agreeing as to how their creative processes work. Additionally, I

wanted to illustrate the multilayeredness of intuition, incubation,

curiosity, cooperation and solitude, opponents and mentors, and con-

sciousness and subconsciousness. Richardson (1985) used a similar

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40 Journal for the Education of the Gifted

collective technique in her book, The New Other Woman:

Contemporary Single Women in Affairs With Married Men, and

explicated the structure of her collective story:

The particulars of the stories were different, and there were

dif-

ferent subplots, but the main thematic was the same. I had dis-

covered the Other Woman "collective story," a historically

situated story, whose theme and plot differs from the estab-

lished cultural story, (p. 30)

In this article, the examples selected for the collective story

described either the game metaphor itself or its elements, such as

curiosity, intuition, physicality, or game strategies. Additionally,

the quotes present various strategies of creative problem solving and

diversity of experiences related to the creative process. The poly-

sémie creativity themes are presented in the form of a dialogue,

where the participants of the dialogue are created by the author

(they do not represent any single academy professor); but the quotes,

words, and messages as they appear here in the text were taken from

the original interviews. The quotes, forming lines of one person in

the collective dialogue, were drawn from various interviews and

from various professors. However, inside one paragraph, the same

person is speaking; thus, the paragraphs present one, whole message

from a single professor.

This collage-like technique was used to illustrate the themes and

elements of the creativity game more effectively (see Lather &

Smithies, 1997). In the collage, I also arranged preexisting informa-

tion in novel ways to render postmodern thinking (Brown, 1999).

The technique speaks for multiple realities and refuses to claim one

true description. Instead of creating individual case stories or por-

traits of the professors, I mixed many voices to make a collective

dialogue. The collective dialogue is a type of "messy text" used to

"reflexively map multiple discourses that occurred in a given social

space. Hence, they were always multivoiced, and no given interpre-

tation is privileged" (Denzin, 1997, p. xvii). Within the collective

dialogue, speakers can disagree with each other or contradict them-

selves. Lather and Smithies described their purposes of creating a

messy text in the following way:

Trying to find a form that enacts that there is never a single story

and that no story stands still, we practiced a kind of dispersal and

forced mobility of attention by putting into play simultaneously

multiple stories that fold in and back on one another. This raises

for readers questions about bodies, places, and times, disrupting

comfort spaces of thinking and knowing, (p. 220)

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Creative Game in Science 41

I believed that it was important in the collective dialogue to not

prioritize any voice or view of creativity because creativity experi-

ences seemed to be very individualistic, situated, and always chang-

ing. Therefore, in collective dialogue, data and interpretation become

more layered, complex, and nonlinear when compared to other more

traditional forms of representation.

Additionally, I constructed collective dialogue to protect identities

of the participants. Lather and Smithies (1997) described in their

book, Troubling the Angels, how they took quotes out of sequence

and combined them across support groups to enhance "theme devel-

opment, dramatic flow, and to protect confidentiality" (p. xvii). In my

collective story, I also added some additional words, such as "for

me,"

"yes," " I don't know," or "I agree with you," to make the dia-

logue more coherent and paragraphs more connected.

The collective story produced snapshots of moments in a person's

creative life. "Lives did not stand still however. The whole was

always in flux, so the level of creative output will vary greatly with

the passage of time" (Dacey

Lennon, 1998, p. 11). Various stories

of the creative process as a game produced moments of authenticity

(Denzin, 1989), and multiple voices provided a possibility for readers

to resonate with the dialogue. Richardson (1985) referred to the valid-

ity of her study of other woman and stated how "validity will rest in

whether what I present resonates with the experiences of other Other

Women" (p. xii). Similarly, part of validity of this analysis and repre-

sentation rests in whether other scientists, in addition to the 12 sci-

entists whose quotes were used to create the dialogue, will recognize

and resonate with the concept of the scientific creativity game and its

elements.

Collective Data Story

Riikka: I could define scientific work as a game with an invisible

opponent. First, I do this move, and then I wait for the opponent to

make his move. Then, I have to analyze his move. It is not me who

dictates the rules,· it is my invisible opponent.

Kalle: Yes, as a player I have to be sensitive. Keep my feelers up and

figure out what is going on, what other people are doing. I hunt for

ideas.

Veini: I can't produce the solution immediately,· it will be found

through intuition. In my brain, there is some kind of model that

self-

activates. A good inventor has a detector that tells him immediately

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42 fouinai foi the Education of the Gifted

that this is wrong. Everything starts from the dissatisfaction. I'm

dissatisfied with the existing situation and, therefore, look for new

solutions.

Reijo:

For me, everything new is challenging. When something goes

or works just the opposite way than expected, that fascinates me.

But tell me, how do you come up with your good ideas?

Kalle: I sit by the lake and do nothing. You have to be lazy enough

that ideas will come. I have to have my vacation when I can just sit

still and do nothing. When the batteries are unloading, the larger,

long-term visions will appear. You have to have time to think and

stare at the water.

Reijo:

Well, I need well-structured daily routines in order to be cre-

ative. I have created a very aesthetic rhythm when I go to the coun-

tryside to my cottage. Every day I have exactly the same schedule. I

get up, write, walk with my dog, check out my fishing nets around

5:00, continue writing, and go to bed around 9:00. There are no

neighbors, just darkness and the sounds of nature. When I am there

by myself and do my daily chores, thoughts just flow. New ques-

tions arise from the subconscious, and the process goes on.

Kalle: One place that works for me is an airplane. When I fly to New

York, for example, and sit on the plane for 8 hours and read, ideas

inevitably appear. Another time is in the mornings in the shower. I

have gotten into the habit of writing my ideas down immediately;

otherwise, I will forget them. As a matter of fact, I think I do a lot of

thinking subconsciously; when I wake up in the middle of the night,

the idea is clear. I have a pencil and a notepad beside my bed. I just

write.

Reijo:

Talking about nighttime and ideas appearing in the dreams,

one time I had this difficult question without the solution. Suddenly

we (me and Heikki, who is my coresearcher) were in my dream and

in the train, which was going from Oulu to Kuopio. During that

train trip, Heikki explained this solution to me. And it was the right

solution. When we published the results of our study, we nick-

named it the "Oulu-Kuopio train theory."

faakko: That could be true for you, but I do not believe in ideas that

appear in dreams.

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Creative Game in Science

Riikka: I do not know

;

I think that there is something subconscious

in the creative process. For me it's like a computer, which is working

in my head all the time, or like a diesel car. The first 4 hours are gone

before the car is warm.

Kalle: I agree with you. The creative process takes time. I write a

story and put it aside for a while. Then, when I return to it, I can

immediately see what is wrong with it. I will write it again. I may do

the rewriting many times because it clears my thoughts.

Reijo:

Being patient is still not enough; you have to also believe in

your vision. When I create, I will give a birth to the idea. I will carry

the idea in my mind, and it is delivered when it is ready. For exam-

ple,

after almost 10 years of experiments and linear research, the

solution suddenly appeared. We were not sure if the chosen direction

was the right one. But then one night when I was working in the lab,

everything just found its place. I knew this was going to be a big dis-

covery. I have heard that some scientists have very aesthetic ways to

see their work and their texts. It has to be almost perfect and whole—

the whole that could be read as a painting. Have you used specific

strategies to approach the problem?

Riikka: Ideas might appear when I buy milk. How I get the idea or

where it comes from is hard to describe. It is like mystics,· it arises

from the desires or from fantasies. I have a specific feeling. It might

happen when I sleep.

Veini: For me, the creative process is like shooting at the target with

many bullets from various directions. I will try to reach the goal with

different strategies. Little by little, I can make sense of what the tar-

get looks like since I am able to see what kind of marks the bullets

have left. Using numerous tools is the key.

Kalle: Writing helps for me. I incubate, and problems go through the

subconscious. But I have to prepare myself by reading, thinking, and

puzzling with my thoughts. I have to input material into my brain

constantly. I try to reach consensus inside my head to find a new

structure. The way that I organize or code my thoughts is essential.

Reijo:

In addition to all that, for me creativity is born in the interac-

tion. Every day I have to meet people, talk to them about my ideas,

and get feedback. I also talk aloud a lot, which clarifies my thoughts.

Scientific work is like putting the puzzle together. Someone else has

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44 Journal for the Education of the Gifted

tried to solve it before, but he has put the pieces in the wrong order.

It is my job to figure it out, find the mistakes, and put the pieces in

their right places.

Commentary on the Collective Story

The collective data story was the form of representation chosen to

illustrate stories and lived experiences of the scientists. Although

the creative processes among these scientists were situated, flexible,

individual, and transformative, common elements of the creativity

game were traced across the interviews and resulted from the cross-

case analysis. These elements are presented below, but not in any

specific order, to answer the research questions of "What is needed

for significant insight to develop and occur?" and "How does the

creative game help to understand the structure of problem solving?"

After introducing the elements, which are themes from the inter-

views and from the collective dialogue making the creative game

possible, I ground all four of them into the data, a theoretical frame

of creativity, and into Goffman's theory. I also illustrate the con-

nections among the elements, the findings of previous studies of

creativity, and the data.

• Preconditions of a creative game: A dissatisfaction of previous

knowledge, an ability and intuition to see the interesting and

right problems, curiosity, and competitive mind.

• Physicality (place of the

game):

An ability to find individual ways to

work comfortably mostly in the backstage by being in nature, in a

sauna, in the shower, for example. Solutions to complex problems

appeared in dreams,· there existed a need for an ascetic rhythm.

• Process (the game itself): A need for time (especially during the

incubation of ideas) and an unceasing interest in the domain.

• Game strategies: An intuition, an ability to use writing to clear

the thoughts, a search for the beauty in solutions, cooperation.

In the following illustration of the elements of the creativity

game, Goffman's (1956) theoretical concepts (various roles, back-

stage work, rules of discipline, and individual engagement) were

interwoven into the description of each element. His concepts con-

stituted a discourse and a basic structure that connected the ele-

ments together, directed the implications of the elements, and

described the circumstances that made the elements and the cre-

ativity game possible.

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Creative Game in Science

When investigating the creative process in science, some precon-

ditions are needed in order for the creativity game to occur.

Professors like Veini felt dissatisfied with current knowledge, or

they found gaps to address in their current practice or paradigm. In

order to find the gaps, it was necessary first to understand and

accept the larger discourse and the rules of the discipline (Kuhn,

1996).

The values of the discipline (domain) controlled the creation

of new, acceptable knowledge, as well. Therefore, scientists had to

constantly create new branches in the tree of previous knowledge.

"The expert was able to relate a novel problem to something

already known and to use this knowledge as the basis for dealing

with the new problem" (Weisberg, 1988, p. 154). Groundbreaking

ideas were usually born in the intersection and cooperation of many

domains, which reflected a component of front-stage work. "It is

necessary to have enough knowledge to take the creator to the edge

of the field but still be flexible enough to go over the border"

(Starko, 1995, p. 104). It is not enough to see inadequacies,· one

must also overcome them.

Formulating good problems, the role of idea hunter was identified

as a part of successful intelligence (Sternberg, 1996). Successful sci-

entists can determine which problems are worth solving and which

are not (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996; Sternberg, 1996; Walberg & Stariha,

1992).

That attribute can be characterized as an ability to select intu-

itively important problems (Martindale, 1989) as an act of "putting

out feelers" (Goffman, 1956, p. 121) or as sensing what is important

and crucial but not said.

Rather than being victims of the unexpected, they create oppor-

tunities for unexpected events to occur, and once these events

do occur, they have specific reasoning strategies for determining

which of these events will be a clue to a new discovery.

(Dunbar, 1999, p. 527)

How did the professors know some problems were more valuable

than others? Maybe it was intuition, which became useful and per-

haps needed in the stage of sensing the problems. Many professors,

such as Veini and Reijo, incorporated play with different solutions

or the fascination of opposites as part of their creative process.

These professors had enough background knowledge to be able to

differentiate the valuable problems from less valuable and interest-

ing ones.

The creative process was as much a game that engaged the mind as

one that included body. The professors emphasized the importance of

finding their own rhythm to work. For example, Reijo and Kalle

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46 fouinai for the Education of the Gifted

removed themselves from established everyday discourses and envi-

ronments to improve their productivity. Usually they escaped daily

routines, and the initial but substantial part of their creative work

was conducted backstage, where professors were able to create a

comforting, familiar atmosphere. Csikszentmihalyi's (1990) concept

of flow portrayed well the participants' experiences of the creative

process. Csikszentmihalyi developed the theory of optimal experi-

ence based on the concept of flow: the "state in which people are so

involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the expe-

rience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost,

for the sheer sake of doing it" (p. 4). Riikka illustrated how organiz-

ing, writing, and reorganizing thoughts took time, but the academy

professorship allowed her to forget the time while working.

Whereas, Kalle described it thusly:

I am thinking about theory all the time. It is hard to say when

I am working and when I am not. Time just passes. I do not do

anything else. On one hand, it appears that I am doing many

things; but, on the other hand, I am only working.

Among Kalle, Reijo, and Riikka, ideas appeared in the garden, in

the shower, in the airplane, in dreams, and so on. Scientists freed

their minds and allowed time and space for new ideas to appear. The

"creator must suspend conscious ego control to dip down deep into

'primary process' thinking—the process of fantasy, daydreaming,

wishes, and irrationality" (Simonton, 1994, p. 95). Weisberg (1988)

referred to Kekule's dream where Kekule found the solution of the

structure of benzene in his dream. Previous research and experi-

ences of these participants illustrated that "the richness of associa-

tions,

intuitions, imagery, and dream-like thinking" (Simonton,

1994,

p. 98) was necessary to create successful solutions to the prob-

lems.

Dreams and daydreams became part of an incubation process

for fruitful research. During the incubation, creators, such as Kalle

and Reijo, played with alternative solutions and multiple dis-

courses, while at the same time evaluating the value of various solu-

tions to their work (Sawyer & Csikszentmihalyi, 1994; Wallas,

1988).

The incubation stage took time (Patrick, 1988); it lasted hours

or years, until a person's mental map of the solution became ready.

In addition to being sensitive to the problems and a variety of solu-

tions,

it was important to aim toward finding beauty, looking for

"beautiful solutions," for example, in the role of painter. Some sci-

entists, like Kalle, were not satisfied until the problem or solution

had reached the beautiful shape of thoughts. The play with thoughts

was an important and motivating part of the creativity game.

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Creative Game in Science 47

For many of these professors, as the example of Reijo indicated,

writing was one form of clearing thoughts and making sense of ideas.

Richardson (1994) elucidated that writing was a "process of discov-

ery. A process where I find something out. I write in order to learn

something that I didn't know before I wrote it" (p. 517). According to

Piirto (1998), creative writers make sense out of their work by writ-

ing. It clarifies their thoughts. In addition to writing, speaking loudly

fostered creators to make better sense of their thoughts.

Another game strategy used by these academy professors was intu-

ition. It played a significant role in the problem-solving stage (e.g.,

Sawyer & Csikszentmihalyi, 1994; Wallas, 1988). According to

Planck (as cited by Simonton, 1994), the "scientist must have a vivid

intuitive imagination, for new ideas are not generated by deduction,

but by an artistically creative imagination" (p. 93). Simonton called

the ability described by professors Kalle, Reijo, and Riikka a

"mavericity, the property of making unusual associations in ideas, of

doing the unexpected" (p. 93). The unusual association of ideas

occurred mainly below the threshold of consciousness.

"Consciousness does not have to be obsessed with chaos, so long as

subconsciousness is pursuing the byways and alleys of memory.

Then 'out of the blue' something potentially brilliant emerges,

thrusting itself into central consciousness" (Simonton, 1994, p. 94).

The Dilemma of Capturing Creativity

The individual and situated creative experiences of these scientists

trouble the notions of a common, universal creative process, but they

open up possibilities to learn from the collective dialogue and profes-

sors'

experiences. When readers analyze how to connect their per-

sonal creative processes to Goffman's play theory and to the game

metaphor, they can make better sense of their own creativity. What

roles do you play, how do you organize your backstage work, and how

do various rules of discipline and individual engagement direct your

own creative processes? Could previous strategies make you more

successful in your creative encounters? Can the use of metaphorical

language point to some unique connections about creativity? Can

you view creativity as a game with a playful attitude?

Given the multidimensionality of creativity, readers have to be

aware that the quotes used in the collective dialogue were not meant

to cover the creative process in its individual or cultural wholeness,

but to illuminate the examples of particular professors' creative prac-

tices.

The choice to use the game metaphor in describing creativity

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48 Journal for the Education of the Gifted

represented only one approach to viewing the creative process in sci-

ence at any specific time, place, or discourse. These experiences do

not necessarily match or reflect the experiences of every scientist

because these Academy professors had enough freedom, time, and

money to pursue their academic interests and follow their intellec-

tual curiosity.

Therefore, there are still many stories to be heard. The drawing of

a complete picture of human creativity seems almost impossible for

any researcher. To have collected the scientists' responses and vari-

ety of explanations together in isolated categories or detailed gener-

alizations would not have done justice to any of the professors'

individual experiences. We cannot ever become the other or fully

understand or represent each others' experiences, but we can offer

interpreted glimpses of participants' stories (Talburt, 1999). In this

research, the dialogue with different participants helped me to reach

equilibrium in presenting multiple voices and realities while still

preserving individuality and feelings of real experiences.

To sum up, I believe that creativity for all should be about the

change and seeing the surrounding world with different eyes. It is

also a question of possibilities, having a wider range of experiences,

the courage to implement new ideas, and a willingness to play a cre-

ative game. It is crucial to know the history of any domain as well as

to have the capability to go beyond existing knowledge in order to

bring innovations to the field. Creative workers in science may learn

to play according to the rules of the game but simultaneously allow

opportunities for exploration and discoveries. After reading and ana-

lyzing professors' stories, I committed myself to presenting a multi-

dimensional and unmediated perspective of creativity without

creating strong boundaries around the phenomena. I believe that cre-

ative approaches should be encouraged in studying creativity, espe-

cially because we cannot be sure what creativity is about, after all.

Can we ever prioritize one's experiences of creativity above the oth-

ers? Can there ever be one true approach to creativity?

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Appendix

Interview Questions Related to Creativity

How do you describe your creative process?

What is the role of creativity in your work?

Do you have certain places or times when ideas occur?

If you face a difficult problem, how do you come about to solve it?

How do you find or create motivation after a less motivating period

of assignments?

What kind of assignments provides you the most pleasure?

Have your working habits changed during the years?

How do you differ (if at all) from colleagues who are not as creative?

Author's Note

This study has been supported in part by grants from the Finnish

Cultural Foundation and from the Academy of Finland.

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